Introduction
On December 7, 2021, the United States House of
Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for
Fiscal Year 2022. This bill (S. 1605) included the provisions for the
establishment of an office devoted to the study of UAP. On December 15,
the US Senate approved it with no revisions, and the final version was
published by the Government Printing Office on December 21. The final
step has been the signature by President Joe Biden, which he did on
December 27, 20211.1
As defined, the NDAA
authorizes fiscal year expenditures
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By V.J. Ballester-Olmos The UFO Chronicles
1-26-22
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principally for the Department of Defense, for the Department of Energy national
security programs, and for the Department of State, including critical
authorities to support defense of the homeland.
As defined, the NDAA authorizes fiscal year expenditures principally for the
Department of Defense, for the Department of Energy national security
programs, and for the Department of State, including critical authorities to
support defense of the homeland.
Section 1683 of the Act carries this title: “Establishment of Office,
Organizational Structure, and Authorities to Address Unidentified Aerial
Phenomena,” and develops such provisions in fewer than six pages. This program
replaces the existing DoD’s UAP Task Force.
The Act was approved with a strong amendment (SA 4281) attached on November 4,
2021, by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (Democrat, New York) who requested that an
“Anomaly Surveillance and Resolution Office” be established. Her text clearly
reflected certain lobbyists’ plans that would include the creation of an
advisory board where certain individuals, UFO coalitions or civilian projects
close to the UFO-alien belief would be presented. The final bill is a watered
down version of that amendment in a way acceptable to the DoD, which with good
reason was not going to have members of the committee chasing after aliens.
Since the closure of the USAF’s Project Blue Book, announced December 17, 1969
and the publication of the Condon report2, UFOs stopped being an
official concern to the US Government, until the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
Task Force (UAPTF) was set up in 2018 by the Office of Naval Intelligence,
later publicly assumed by the Department of Defense in August 2020. On June
2021, the DoD provided a preliminary assessment of the UAPTF33,
placing the new US Government UFO study at the highest possible level in the
chain of command. It reported that 144 UAP events had been collected between
November 2004 and March 2021, reports amazingly declared “largely
inconclusive.” Admittedly, the actual rate of case resolution was barely
0.7%!4 Finally, on November 23, 2021, the Department of Defense
announced the creation of an Airborne Object Identification and Management
Synchronization Group (AOIMSG). The fundamental object of study is to be “the
identification of airborne objects5.”
For the benefit of an audience not willing to read the full raw text of the
Act, in this article I am showing—and commenting on—the highlights and key
elements of the planned “UAP Office” of the US Department of Defense.
In what follows next, any quotes from the approved bill6 are in
italics; every reference to “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena” is hereafter UAP;
“Secretary” refers to the Secretary of Defense, and “Director” refers to the
Director of National Intelligence; my own remarks on particulars of the Act
will appear in brackets.
Inception
When?
The Office will be active not later than 180 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act. This is, it must be in force before June 30, 2022. [No
sharp urgency is observed, probably considering that a UAP Task Force has been
in place in the US Navy since 2018 and that the Department of Defense
announced the establishment of an Airborne Object Identification and
Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) in November 2021.]
By Whom?
The Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National
Intelligence.
Where?
• within a component of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, or
• within a joint organization of the Department of Defense and the Office
of the Director of National Intelligence.
To Do What?
In addition to specifically carry[ing] out the duties of the UAPTF, this
Office will have the following additional duties:
• Developing procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection,
reporting, and analysis of incidents, including adverse physiological
effects, regarding UAP across the Department of Defense and the intelligence
community. [Here I start noticing terms borrowed from raw UFO literature and the long,
dark hand of nuts-and-bolts ufologists.]
• Developing processes and procedures to ensure that such incidents … are
reported and incorporated in a centralized repository.
• Establishing procedures to require the timely and consistent reporting
of such incidents. [Lots of procedures and protocols mean a lot of administrative work and
bureaucracy. For sure this program will involve a huge amount of paperwork.]
• Evaluating links between UAP and adversary foreign governments, other
foreign governments, or nonstate actors. [In other words, air espionage from Russia or China, research balloons, or
domestic drones, to name a few potential examples.]
• Evaluating the threat that such incidents present to the United States. [Come on, UAP is nothing new, it was called flying saucers since 1947 and
then UFOs. After 75 years, one of the most powerful countries in the world
has still not learned if these phenomena represent a true threat to the
nation or not? On second thought, this is a perfect proposition, one to be
posed and categorically denied in a future report.]
• Coordinating with other departments and agencies of the Federal
Government…including the FAA, the NASA, the Department of Homeland
Security, the NOAA, and the Department of Energy.
[The inclusion of all-encompassing aviation, aeronautics, astronautics,
atmospheric, marine, intelligence and advanced science know-how in the USA
will finally allow the removal of this issue once and for all from the
Government agenda and the satisfaction of public voracity as soon as nothing
“out of this world” is found.]
• Coordinating with allies and partners of the United States … to better
assess the nature and extent of UAP. [Good. Be prepared to collect repeated statements and assessments from (at
least) several European countries that have realized after 50 years of
handling UFO reports that neither flying saucers, UFOs or UAP pose any
threat to both national security and aviation safety.]
• Preparing reports for Congress, in both classified and unclassified
form. [For the series of semiannual briefings and annual reports to be submitted
to Congress, see the end of this article for the chronology I have
prepared.]
In a further segment of the text, it notes that for each briefing period,
the head of the Office established … shall … provide to the chairman and
the ranking minority member or vice chairman of the congressional
committees specified…an enumeration of any instances in which data
relating to UAP was not provided to the Office because of the
classification restrictions on that data [sic] or for any other reason.
Response to UAP and Resources
• There will be designated one or more line organizations…that possess
appropriate expertise, authorities, accesses, data, systems, platforms,
and capabilities to rapidly respond to, and conduct field investigations
of, incidents involving UAP under the direction of the head of the Office
established. [Evidently, this program dwarfs Project Blue Book in competence, resources
and goals.]
• The Secretary and the Director shall ensure that each line
organization…has adequate personnel with the requisite expertise,
equipment, transportation, and other resources necessary to respond
rapidly to incidents or patterns of observations involving UAP.
[Patterns? The search for patterns and constants and laws derived from UFO
data has been a primary objective of scientific UFO research from the early
beginning, without finding anything lasting or substantial other than the
realization that UFO and IFO data are indistinguishable.]
Analysis to Perform
The Secretary and the Director shall designate one or more line
organizations that will be primarily responsible for scientific, technical,
and operational analysis of data gathered by field investigations conducted
and data from other sources, including with respect to the testing of
materials, medical studies, and development of theoretical models, to better
understand and explain UAP.
[It echoes work of tycoon Robert Bigelow’s NIDS (1996-2004) and
Bigelow-contractor to Pentagon’s AATIP (DIA-funded, 2008-2012; unofficial,
loose group, 2012-2017). It is evident the heavy influence from theorists of
an alleged reverse engineering from UFO materials, the proponents of fantastic
novel propulsion models, those who believe that theoretical models are
required to travel to other dimensions, and from hard-core UFO believers, be
they military, intelligence people, politicians, scientists, or laypeople.
They have partially won this battle because they have done an excellent
lobbying job (not all their objectives have been achieved, however), but they
will lose the war, because this is, like it or not, a dispute with science and
rationality.]
Authority
Another section of the legal text informs that directives will be issued to
ensure that
each line organization designated…has authority to draw on the special
expertise of persons outside the Federal Government with appropriate
security clearances.
[The ambiguity of the language here worries me: what experts can they import
or contract for advice and analysis? I sincerely hope that the big Department
of Defense of the United States does not have to resort on those well-known
names who have been within and around the UFO movement for decades, generating
much more speculation than results, nor that it leans on any
scientifically-sounding UFO group whose true impulse is the need to prove that
UFOs come from the outer space.]
Methodology
Data Collection
The Director and the Secretary will ensure that:
• each element of the intelligence community with data relating to UAP
makes such data available immediately to the Office established … or to an
entity designated … to receive such data. [There is no precedent to this inter-agency coordination concerning UFOs.
From now on, it is compulsory that any available information on UFOs in the
custody of any Government agency or center is immediately surfaced and brought
to the attention of the UAP Office. The interesting consequence is that it
will appease the extended rumor in the contaminated UFO atmosphere that
information of extraordinary importance is hidden from the eyes of the public
by certain areas of the US Government. When no information transfer finally
occurs—for lack of that fantastic information—another myth will fall.]
• military and civilian personnel of the Department of Defense or an
element of the intelligence community, and contractor personnel … have
access to procedures by which the personnel shall report incidents or
information, including adverse physiological effects, involving or
associated with UAP directly to the Office or to an entity designated.
[Again, the obsession with health effects is rather obvious, descending from
featured UFO sightings like the Cash-Landrum incident of December 29, 1980.
This is a true eccentricity, because physiological effects are but a tiny
fraction of past UFO reports.]
• The head of the UAP Office
shall supervise the development and execution of an intelligence
collection and analysis plan to gain as much knowledge as possible
regarding the technical and operational characteristics, origins and
intentions of UAP, including with respect to the development, acquisition,
deployment, and operation of technical collection capabilities necessary
to detect, identify, and scientifically characterize UAP.
[The influencers who pushed for this section of the bill believe that there
is a sole origin for UFOs, the extraterrestrial, only this may explain the
above sentence. In reality, there is not a single cause for UFOs/UAP but a
large series of conventional (some easy, some complex) explanations, where
intentionality is the less frequent property in these occurrences.]
• The head of the UAP Office
shall consider and propose … the use of any resource, capability, asset,
or process of the Department and the intelligence community.
Science Plan
The head of the UAP Office shall supervise the development and execution of
a science plan to develop and test, as practicable, scientific theories to (1)
account for characteristics and performance of UAP that exceed the known
state of the art in science or technology, including in the areas of
propulsion, aerodynamic control, signatures, structures, materials, sensors,
countermeasures, weapons, electronics, and power generation; and (2)
provide the foundation for potential future investments to replicate any
such advanced characteristics and performance.
[This is one of the concepts incorporated in the legislation through the
efforts of politicians heavily biased by members of the most credulous UFO
community. Not bad in itself, research is always outstanding in science
debates, but it has no sense in this case. As soon as investigators realize
that events are solved as spontaneous, natural, biological, or artificial
(earthly) motives, no structural or aerodynamical work is needed. Perhaps,
however, it is sensu contrario, i.e., for the improvement of aircraft sensor
equipment to better discriminate a bird or a balloon from distant airplanes,
for example, in order to minimize false UAP footage. The need to devise
“scientific theories” to account for sightings of flying objects defying
present-day technology is a science fiction idea only in the head of UFO
fanatics, who seem to act like religious fanatics. This part of the bill’s
text clearly shows how the writers believe that there is an “advanced”
technology behind UAP. They surely have aliens in mind, as everyone can
suspect that no country would test their advanced aircraft over enemy or
foreign territory.]
Priority
The Director, with the recommendation of the Secretary, shall assign an
appropriate level of priority within the National Intelligence Priorities
Framework to the requirement to understand, characterize, and respond to
UAP. [The ideology behind the official text is blatant. What do the proponents and
their writers behind have in mind when postulating that the nature of the UAP
requires to be understood? Reentries of space junk, research balloons,
missiles and rockets, birds, fireballs, drones, aircraft, and a myriad more of
actual, historical explanations do not need to be understood, just verified.]
Reporting
Annual Report
The bill requires that not later than October 31, 2022, and annually
thereafter until October 31, 2026, an annual report will be submitted to
Congress.
[What is the significance of this 5-year period? Is it a permanent office with
reporting requirements only established for its five first years of operation?
Or does Defense have a short-term program in mind to solve the UAP problem
once all planned resources are in place? For the sake of clarity and our own
follow-up control, I refer the reader to a tabulated chronology I have drafted
at the end of this article.
This annual report will contain (1)
all reported UAP-related events that occurred during the one-year period,
and others not included in an earlier report,(2)
an analysis of data and intelligence received through each reported
UAP-related event, including data collected through (i) geospatial
intelligence; (ii) signals intelligence; (iii) human intelligence; and (iv)
measurement and signature intelligence, (3) the number—and analysis—of reported incidents of UAP over restricted air space of the United States
during the one-year period, (4)
identification of potential aerospace or other threats posed by UAP to the
national security of the United States
[At this point in time, are not all the threats to the United States of
America already known by this country? Will flying saucers (sorry, UAP) once
again matter, after 75 years of “existence”? Shame on you!] (5)
an assessment of any activity regarding UAP that can be attributed to one or
more adversarial foreign governments, (6)
identification of any incidents or patterns regarding UAP that indicate a
potential adversarial foreign government may have achieved a break-through
aerospace capability
[This legislation, partly influenced by UFO believers, partly by common-sense
writers, leave the door open to ultra-sophisticated Chinese or Russian
aircraft eavesdropping and practicing surveillance on US military exercises,
just in case the recently-known US Navy pilot reports truly correspond to
airborne flying platforms. But you do not need to launch aircraft to spy
up-close when you can do it with high-altitude satellites], (7)
an update of the coordination by the United States with allies and partners
on efforts to track, understand, and address UAP,
(8)
an update of any efforts under way on the ability to capture or exploit
discovered UAP [Again, we enter into science fiction scenarios. No verified residue of any
UAP has been found, and less so in the process of being exploited. The few
examples of collected materials associated with UFO sightings have been very
controversial in the literature. Once again, the influence of individuals
closely related to past AATIP and even previous civilian precedents is clear
in this legislation], (9)
an assessment of any health-related effects for individuals that have
encountered UAP
[The medical issue refrain unjustifiably emerges once more, reflecting
incidents like Cash-Landrum, or even older, probably fraudulent, episodes like
that at Falcon Lake, Canada, on May 20, 1967], (10)
The number of reported incidents, and descriptions thereof, of UAP
associated with military nuclear assets, including strategic nuclear weapons
and nuclear-powered ships and submarines … (and)
… facilities or assets associated with the production, transportation, or
storage of nuclear weapons or components thereof …
(and)
… UAP or drone of unknown origin associated with nuclear power generating
stations, nuclear fuel storage sites, or other sites or facilities regulated
by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission [Chinese and Russians must be having a big laugh at the expense of US
gullibility. This verbiage proceeds from some ufologists’ assertion of a
relationship between UFO sightings and nukes, as well as UFO visitations to
ballistic missile silos, never solidly certified], and (11)
the names of the line organizations that have been designated to perform
the specific functions … each such line organization has been assigned
primary responsibility.
The bill’s UAP text stipulates that annual reports
shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may require a classified
annex.
Budget
Appropriations
There is authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary to
carry out the work of the Office established … including with respect to (1)
general intelligence gathering and intelligence analysis; (2) strategic
defense, space defense, defense of controlled air space, defense of ground,
air, or naval assets, and related purposes.
[Here, someone is thinking of a kind of Star Wars. They are going to waste
millions of tax-payer dollars because of the whimsical beliefs of a bunch of
people who happen to be well-placed in Washington D.C. No specific budget
amount is given.]
Closing
Termination of the UAPTF
Not later than the date on which the Secretary establishes the Office … the
Secretary shall terminate the UAP Task Force.
On Terminology
The bill concludes by stating the definition of some terms repeated in this
section of the bill’s text:
• “appropriate congressional committees” for both the House of
Representatives and the Senate: (A) The Committees on Armed Services, (B)
The Committee on Appropriations, (C) The Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
(D) The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
• “intelligence community”: the meaning as per section 3 of the National
Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 3003).
• “line organization”: an organization that executes programs and
activities to directly advance the core functions and missions of the
department or agency to which the organization is subordinate, but, with
respect to the Department of Defense, does not include a component of the
Office of the Secretary of Defense.
• “transmedium objects or devices”:
objects or devices that are observed to transition between space and the
atmosphere, or between the atmosphere and bodies of water, that are not
immediately identifiable. [This is a true anomaly, as this term does not appear in the text of the
bill! But it is a term applied by lobby-boosted UFO believers to video
images showing objects with the supposed capacity to migrate from air to
water, a concept taken from misinterpretation of two Navy videos: USS Nimitz
“Tic-Tac” footage taken on November 14, 2004 at ~110 NM SSW of San
Diego—disclosed in 2017—and USS Omaha footage on July 15, 2019, at ~107 NM
West of San Diego—disclosed in 2020. Even from the wrong analysis performed
of a pair of balloons in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, on April 25, 2013. This is
probably a remnant of the initial draft.]
• “unidentified aerial phenomena.” In this context, the term UAP has three
possible meanings:
(a) airborne objects that are not immediately identifiable; (b)
transmedium objects or devices; and (c) submerged objects or devices that
are not immediately identifiable and that display behavior or performance
characteristics that the objects or devices may be related to UAP.
[The inclusion of submarine UAP is another tribute to UFO legacy with its
term USOs, also a very minor issue in historical UFO reporting. Also, a nod
to Navy reports. At least, however, it links both airborne and submerged
objects to phenomena “not immediately identifiable” as a stated recourse
assuming that these objects or devices might be finally identified…as will
the case, in my view, if investigation is properly done. Surprisingly, the
tagline “not immediately identifiable” is not featured to those
powerfully-imaged and imaginary “transmedium objects”! Another drafting
slip? A Freudian slip? Signs that the UAP Act has been dealt from different
angles? Time will tell.]
Discussion
Since 1947, the whole world has been intermittently (in “waves”) aware of
reports of flying saucers, UFOs or UAP. In those 74 years, no evidence
whatsoever of the existence of alien visitation has been discovered; on the
contrary, 98% of cases have met a plausible explanation. In spite of
Governmental study groups and civilian organizations and military commissions.
There remain unsolved just a few sighting observations which are apparently
significant for believers and explainable for others. Above all, UFOs are
nowadays part of popular culture, entertainment, literature, movies,
advertisement, TV documentaries, etc.
Under the rational and reasonable premise that UFO/UAP reports does not
represent any form of extraterrestrial phenomenon manifesting in our planet,
this is, that there is no alien presence on Earth, I can conclude and predict
that this new UAP Office will, eventually, get the program ended because they
will never produce anything extraordinary except a drain of money and
personnel (not to mention the expected publicity nightmare for the DoD). The
weight of this statement will be appraised already by December 2026.
I am afraid the United States of America may be in the verge of being the
object of tremendous ridicule at a global level if there are no UAP at all,
neither its own aircraft, nor foreign ones, just multiple phenomena of an
ordinary nature. Because this solution was already flagged since the findings
of Professor Donald Menzel back in 1953, and after the USAF’s Project Blue
Book (closed 1969) and the Condon report.
In the last few years, news about flying saucers, UFOs and UAP have
skyrocketed; precisely since a December 2017 article in the
New York Times7 re-opened the UFO Pandora’s box. This time,
the focus was on UAP evidence in the hands of the US Government, a Pentagon
UFO program pushed by credulous, aged politicians, financed from black
budgets, handled by gullible people, and outsourced to a company headed by a
gullible millionaire. Personalities with power around the Capitol—fueled by
certain journalists and fuzzy video footage from the US Navy—have joined this
tribe of believers to finally force the Department of Defense to concede that
possibly there is something unknown violating the US airspace and jeopardizing
aviation safety. Well, I see a perfect parallel with the recent case of
Elizabeth Holmes (of Theranos fame) of fraud and conspiracy. For years,
high-standing, influential persons from the world of politics and science,
including ex-government secretaries, fell under the spell of a false concept.
The same will someday happen with this UAP-Government interface craze,
supported by so many important activists, be they military, executives,
scientists, career officials, or journalists, all caught in a trap dominated
by something so acute and deep: the blind belief that we are being visited by
aliens.
Acknowledgments
To Tim Printy and Julio Plaza del Olmo, for contributions. To Richard W.
Heiden, for editing.
References
(1)
https://tinyurl.com/bder8684
(2) Daniel S. Gillmor (ed.), Final Report of the Scientific Study of
Unidentified Flying Objects. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. in
association with Colorado Associated University Press, 1969.
http://www.project1947.com/shg/condon/contents.html
(3)
https://tinyurl.com/33wwpnss
(4) V.J Ballester-Olmos, “The UAP Pentagon Report—Commented Abstract,”
scroll down in
http://fotocat.blogspot.com/2021_09_14_archive.html
(5)
https://tinyurl.com/2fjrraxf
(6)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QVspt2Bae6paAzu9zJfrn-x1bQzUgGWv/view
(Credit: Douglas Johnson).
(7)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html
CHRONOLOGY OF THE UAP OFFICE PROGRAM, 2022-2026
(B= Before/Not later than)
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B 31 MARCH 2022
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Classified briefing by the head of the UAP Office to
congressional committees (A), (B) and (D) , including UAP
incidents reported to the UAPTF after 24 June 2021
|
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B 30 JUNE 2022
|
Establishment of UAP Office (to be named)
|
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B 30 JUNE 2022
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UAP Task Force terminated
|
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B 31 OCTOBER 2022
|
Annual report by the Director of Intelligence, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, to congressional committees
|
|
B 31 DECEMBER 2022
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 30 June 2022 and events not included in
the earlier briefing
|
|
B 30 JUNE 2023
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 31 December 2022
|
|
B 31 OCTOBER 2023
|
Annual report by the Director of Intelligence, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, to congressional committees
|
|
B 31 DECEMBER 2023
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 30 June 2023
|
|
B 30 JUNE 2024
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 31 December 2023
|
|
B 31 OCTOBER 2024
|
Annual report by the Director of Intelligence, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, to congressional committees
|
|
B 31 DECEMBER 2024
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 30 June 2024
|
|
B 30 JUNE 2025
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 31 December 2024
|
|
B 31 OCTOBER 2025
|
Annual report by the Director of Intelligence, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, to congressional committees
|
|
B 31 DECEMBER 2025
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 30 June 2025
|
|
B 30 JUNE 2026
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 31 December 2025
|
|
B 31 OCTOBER 2026
|
Annual report by the Director of Intelligence, in consultation
with the Secretary of Defense, to congressional committees
|
|
B 31 DECEMBER 2026
|
Classified briefing to congressional committees, including UAP
incidents occurred since 30 June 2026
|